First Encounter

Ubel has been walking for a few hours by now. He hasn't found anything noteworthy as of yet. No cities, towns or people in general. He had washed his clothes that were soaked with blood in a small lake he had found, so now it could be seen what he was wearing.

It was the same as the man from his vision.

The young man didn't know if it was a coincidence or not that he wore the same clothes as the one from the vision. If it wasn't, then that suggested that the vision played out not too long before he woke up in the city.

He was thinking about his current situation, when in his vision entered a small dot. It was pretty far away from him, so he couldn't make out what it was exactly.

He channeled mana into his eyes. This made his eyesight improve considerably and he was able to make out a shape.

After getting a little closer, Ubel was able to recognize what it was.

It was a carriage, made out of high-grade wood. On the sides of the carriage were depicted two lions, which were standing on two feet and carrying a white flag in which were illustrated two stars, yellow and red next to each other. There were two armored horses pulling the carriage.

As the carriage started to get closer to him, it was beginning to slow down a little. After getting about 50 meters away from Ubel, it stopped and a middle-aged man, with short blond hair and a moustache, exited from the carriage.

"My Lord, please let us handle this! If it is someone dangerous and he does something to you, what will we do?" Ubel heard an anxious voice from inside the carriage.

Following the middle-aged man, a man who looked like he was in his late-twenties emerged. He had red hair, which went a little past his shoulders. He was clad in a full set of armor bar a helmet.

"There is no need to worry. I know how to handle myself. There wasn't even a need for the strongest Knight of our Ruthergett house to come with me on a hopeless search." The middle-aged man said.

"Even if that is true, you never know what will happen. There are plenty of scum who are looking for a chance to assassinate your esteemed self!" The red-haired man said with a bit of anger in his voice towards the end.

Ubel just stared at them and waited for them to speak first. He did not want to give anything away as he didn't even know what was happening yet.

"Enough." The middle-aged started heading towards Ubel. "Let's ask this person if he knows something first."

"Hello, friend. My name is William Ruthergett and this is Grant Stewart. May I ask what your name is?" William asked Ubel.

Ubel put a purposefully forced smile as if he wasn't in the mood to talk and he answered. "Hello. My name is Allen. I didn't expect to meet someone here, in the middle of nowhere. What might you be doing here?"

"As expected, a commoner." The aforementioned Grant Stewart remarked, while William frowned at his comment.

The Knight recognized him because he used only the name 'Allan'. In this world, commoners generally didn't have a surname.

Ubel used a fake name because of four reasons:

First, he did not know what was his current situation. Was he in some kind of trouble? Was he wanted? He worried about things like that.

Second, it was because of the vision. In that vision he seemed to have been thought quite poorly by that woman and he clearly was out for her life. She seemed to have a clan and she was most likely its leader. If he had killed her and her clan, perhaps someone knew of him and the reputation of that act would probably not be positive.

Third, it wasn't know whether these people will be friendly. They might become his enemies, and so an alias should be of help if they wanted to track him down. Well, that was only if he could escape. That seemed pretty unlikely as he didn't really think he could beat or even resist the red-haired Knight if he wanted to kill him.

And fourth, he was a noble. They might recognize the name Achlys and become suspicious about how a noble would be in this kind of place without any guards or someone to accompany him. And that wasn't something even he knew.

Grant stepped in front of William as he showed a wary expression. "That's something we should be asking you! What are you doing in the middle of nowhere?"

Ubel's smile turned bitter.

"I am not here because I want to be. My village was destroyed by a Magical Beast tide, so I had no choice but to look for a new home. I am an orphan and I don't have any relatives either, therefore there was no one I could depend on either."

Grant didn't have any change in his expression, while William showed a look of pity.

"That is terrible! I had suggested to clear the vicinity around here, but unfortunately the royal court did not approve my suggestion..." William sounded worried. "Allen, was it? I wanted to ask you something. Have you seen this girl somewhere?"

As he asked that, a image appeared in the air. It was a general spell that allowed the caster to record a certain moment which they had seen and display it.

The image was of a beautiful girl, who looked like she was around 20 years old. She had waist-length blond hair and deep green eyes. She had a smile in the image shown.

"No, I haven't seen her. To be exact, I haven't seen a living being since I left my village." Ubel answered him.

The middle-aged man appeared even more worried from his words, while the red-haired Knight frowned.

"I see. Do you want to come with us to the Ruthergett territory? If you want to walk to the nearest village it will take a few days and I don't think it will be an easy journey. I guarantee you that the life in our territory will be much better than what you had in your village." William kindly suggested. Surprisingly, Grant did not say anything in opposition. He appeared resigned, as if he had seen this situation many times already.

"Thank you for your help, Your Lordship." Ubel accepted.

"Then let's go. Come in with me." William said as he turned around to board the carriage.

Ubel followed him, while Grant moved by his side.

Once Ubel entered the carriage, he noticed that it was much bigger than he thought. It was around 9 square meters. The other thing he noticed was that there were 3 more people wearing armors like Grant. They all glanced at him, one smiled at him and nodded, the others just turned away.

One of the Knights directed a question towards William.

"My Lord, any news about the Young Lady?"

William just shook his head.

"Let's search for her for a few more hours. Since she had a vision about this region, then she should be around here. It seems that a beast tide has occurred nearby, but she should be safe. After all, Izal, the Goddess of Humanity is looking after her." William said as if to comfort himself. "Allen, you don't mind waiting for a little more to search for my daughter, do you?" He asked Ubel.

"Of course not, Your Lordship." While Ubel wondered what he meant by 'visions', outwardly he answered kindly.